Empowering youth Participation for Inclusive and plural Communities

ongoing

EPIC_IDEA – Empowering youth Participation for Inclusive and plural Communities is promoted by a partnership of CSOs in 4 European countries - ICEI (Italy), UNITED (Hungary), ACI–Diversit (Spain), RPCI (Portugal) – and a wide network of 27 supporting entities, including the Council of Europe, 13 public authorities and 13 CSOs. The Overall Objective is to contribute to increase effective citizens’ democratic participation, in particular of young citizens, and their sense of belonging to EU values in Italy, Hungary, Spain and Portugal. Three specific objectives are identified: 1. Strengthen youth workers’ and young citizens’ awareness of EU values and of the role of young people as key players for the future of the Europe 2. Increase young citizens’ engagement in their local communities to promote diverse and inclusive societies 3. Support young citizens to effectively advocate their views and proposals for the future of the EU to policy makers at local, national and European level EPIC_IDEA will engage the young people in a transformative and empowerment 3-steps process: a) Building awareness on the EU and its values, including gender equality, fundamental rights and democracy: • Trainings and capacity building • Community of practices • National youth camps and transnational youth summit b) Young people’s individual and collective actions, through anti-rumours youth-led actions in 13 European cities c) Advocacy and policy making: • Policy Labs • Transnational advocacy event in Strasbourg • Future Gallery and social media communication In addition, youth workers (target group 2) will participate in capacity building activities and community of practices with the aim of improving their competences to better support youth engagement. Thirdly, public institutions at local, national and European level (target group 3) will be involved by youth-led actions and will participate in dialogue events such as Policy Labs and the transnational advocacy event in Strasbourg